(As in, “I think our Jens is falling asleep, it’s time we threw you guys out” – said at 4 am on Sunday morning to a crowd consisting of the support band and his ex-girlfriend, after we have sang songs in Greek, Japanese and Italian…)

One reason I haven’t yet talked about it is that it’s hard to. The memory of Saturday night brings tears to my eyes just now –it was that great– and I’m not the only one to feel this way. Since then I’ve read a review stating he was “wonderful, wonderful”; got three emails along the same lines; and had a couple of people after the gig tell me they could hardly speak. And, in this land of moaners (Greece), I haven’t heard one negative thing about it all. And did I mention it was nearly sold out? We actually made money.

I have never before felt so successful in my life. And to think I didn’t do that much about it. Okay, I did to a fair bit of the organising, but the idea was Lupe’s, and it would never have happened without Chris, Nick, Georgie, Martijn, and of course Jens, who even while touring America was decided not to cancel this show. The funniest thing about it is that back then I was too drunk (on excitement, mostly) to realise how great everything had gone. For a few hours, between, say, 10 pm on Saturday (when I stopped panicking) and 5 am on Sunday (when I finally fell asleep), I didn’t realise, think or even feel anything. I just was.

I don’t know what the best part was.

Perhaps it was when he climbed on those stairs next to the stage and sang an acoustic version of ‘Julie’ to an audience that was almost holding its breath. I know, because me & Chris were singing along occasionally, just the words we could remember by heart, and even though we were rather quiet, I could still hear us perfectly clearly

“… and all your friends are moving to London, while the sherry trees are still in blossom, oooh, Julie…”

Of course it says ‘cherry trees’ but the Swedes have a problem with the ‘ch’ sound and we had fun imagining sherry bottles hanging from trees.

Or it might have been when he said he would do two more songs, and because we should go away happy, he’d do the sad one first and I, almost unable to hold it back, said rather loudly “we’re just happy to have you”. It took my breath away, just how much my words reflected the general feeling in the room – and how Jens smiled (rather shyly).

Or it might have been the fact the he hardly paused between songs, which made the whole thing seem like a party. Just as I had promised everyone it would be. Of course later on Chris told me it was because it was best not to pause the i-pod which isn’t the most romantic reason but perhaps it makes it even better.

Or perhaps it was ‘Higher power’. The last song before the first encore (there were three!), and my favourite one… That Blueboy sample gets me every time. (I’ve always thought ‘So catch him’ is the best song ever, anyway.) I hardly remember much of that in fact, I must have died of happiness by then, having sang my heart out through most of the gig – particularly ‘Black cab’ and ‘Maple leaves’ and ‘You are the light’, I think everyone was shouting along during these… And the boyfriend said he would propose to me there and then if he hadn’t done it already.

“She said let’s put a plastic bag over our heads
and then kiss and stuff ’til we get dizzy and fall on the bed.
We were in heaven for five or six minutes, then we passed out
and I was so in love I thought I knew what love was all about.”

The funny thing is, I would have probably said yes. Even though I’ve done it already.

It all started in May 2003 when me and my friend Nick decided to start a record label. A few days after the initial decision I got a text message with list of prospective names, which I proceeded to write on the back of a supermarket receipt and promptly lose. Later on, when we had to chose one, I remembered only three: Basement Bar (which was Nick’s favourite but already taken), Pink Lemonade (which I had added myself and thus was my favourite) and Sprinkled Pepper (which was our shared second). That name came from a Fairground Attraction song (you know, this band that sings that “it’s gooot to beeeeeee peeeeerfect”) called ‘A smile in whisper. It says:

You can guess what the label got named; and why, when I thought of keeping a diary of the process of setting up a label, it instantly got named ‘the sprinkled pepper diaries’. I never did keep the diary of course, and we never made a label. Life got in the way too much and after a couple of years it didn’t seem like a good idea anymore. But both names lingered on. Today Sprinkled Pepper is what I call “an (almost) Athenian indiepop collective” –meaning me and some friends of mine, organising a few gigs and parties around Athens and occasionally agreeing on what good music is– and the sprinkled pepper diaries are, well, this.

I’m not sure why I kept the name. I was fond of it, and it was catchy, but it’s not only this. I think I like the idea of the things I write sprinkled like pepper on our hearts.